Al Jazeera - War Crimes in Gaza (2024)

Speaker 1: The West cannot hide. They cannot claim ignorance. Nobody can say they didn't know.

Speaker 2: We live in an era of technology.

Speaker 1: And this has been described as the first livestream genocide in history, and I believe that to be true.

Speaker 2: No!

Speaker 3: No!

Speaker 4: No!

Speaker 2: No!

Speaker 1: They are conducting a genocide now with glee. They're setting their atrocities to music and putting them on catchy reels on TikTok. Ordinary Israelis see what their military is doing and celebrate it. It's not just fringe elements who see this and think it's a good thing.

Speaker 2: When a nation protects its home, it fights. And we will fight until we break their backbone. It's not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true. It's an entire nation out there that is responsible.

Speaker 5: Gaza becomes a strip in 1948 with the creation of the State of Israel. 3/4 of a million people are driven from their homes in what Palestinians call the Nakba. Close to a third of refugees end up in Gaza. In 1967, Gaza and the West Bank are occupied by the Israelis. After the Israelis withdraw settlements from Gaza in 2005, Hamas wins elections throughout the occupied territories. It advocates resistance to Israeli occupation—

Speaker 2: Death to the Jews! Death to the Jews!

Speaker 5: —and is prescribed as a terrorist organization in the West. When it takes control of Gaza in 2007, Israel imposes a blockade. In the years that follow, it carries out a number of attacks on Gaza, citing security requirements. Thousands of Palestinians are killed. 1,200 Hamas fighters storm through the fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel.

Speaker 6: The main goal was to bring the Palestinian cause on the table and to oblige all the politicians in the region and outside the region that No one can bypass the Palestinian. No one can overcome the Palestinian cause, and without solving this, no one can enjoy security or stability.

Speaker 5: More than 1,000 Israelis are killed. More than 250 hostages are taken.

Speaker 7: The impact of October 7th is immense. It's a society in complete trauma. We could never, in our worst nightmare, think that October 7th would happen.

Speaker 4: The aura of Israeli invincibility disappeared on the 7th of October last year.

Speaker 8: Israel has survived because neighbors have always believed that Israel was omnipotent, a country that cannot be defeated militarily. A couple of hours, all of this fell apart. Immediately became clear to most Israelis they're not secure, and the enemies around it are not deterred.

Speaker 4: This is what Israel is desperately now trying to restore, the strategic posture of deterrence, to make themselves feel safe.

Speaker 7: And I think from the beginning, it was obviously that in order to restore deterrence, It will respond disproportionately. But we can't escape that there was a strong element of avenging and revenging. אנחנו מטילים מצור מוחלט על העיר עזה.

Speaker 2: אין חשמל, אין מזון, אין מים, אין דלק. הכל סגור. אנחנו נלחמים בחיות אדם.

Speaker 5: This investigation assembles evidence of war crimes committed during the year-long Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, and of complicity in those crimes. The evidence includes the voices of those who ordered the assault.

Speaker 2: על היום השחור הזה שהם הוללו למדינת ישראל ולאזרחיה.

Speaker 5: Those who supported it, those who enabled it. The United States stands with Israel.

Speaker 2: We will not ever fail to have their back.

Speaker 5: Those who endured it.

Speaker 2: We are attacked by Israel at the hospital.

Speaker 5: And above all, those who inflicted it.

Speaker 2: Bravo, Benja. Bravo, Benja. Bravo, Benja.

Speaker 5: Al Jazeera's investigative unit has compiled a database of over 2,500 social media accounts containing photos and videos placed online by Israeli soldiers.

Speaker 9: It is a treasure trove which you very seldom come across. So to have that is something which I think prosecutors will be licking their lips at.

Speaker 10: Do you know anything about that? What can you report at this stage?

Speaker 11: Ah!

Speaker 10: All right. Yumna, please take cover.

Yumna Elsayed: We knew that this, or the retaliation, is going to be so much bigger than before. This is a missile attack on, on Palestine Tower, right in the middle of Gaza City.

Speaker 10: Yumna, take a moment to breathe.

Yumna Elsayed: But we didn't expect it—

Speaker 10: Take a moment to breathe.

Yumna Elsayed: —in no means to be what it has turned out to be. The fact that there are Israeli captives in the Strip, wouldn't that be a red line for Israel, that it would be afraid for its captives? Even if Israel wanted to cross these red lines, we thought for sure that the world would stand and say no.

Speaker 2: No!

Speaker 11: You wake up every morning thinking that this would be actually your last day. You know you might be next. There have been journalists and human rights workers who have been directly killed during the previous attacks. But this war, it was more like systematic attacks, systematic targeting of civilians, of Journalists of human rights workers. So it's been a struggle since the beginning of this war, realizing that what you're doing is actually not only risking your own life, but your but the life of your family, the lives of those taking shelter with you, everyone who you could be around.

Yumna Elsayed: كان تم استهداف بيوت حوالينا بدون سابق انذار كانت تم قصفها فقراء رؤوس ساكنيها أنا رب الأسرة إنه أكون أنا اللي قدر الإمكان كنت أحاول إنه أظاهر بال بالشجاعة والخوف إنه ما فيش خوف وهذه الأشياء عادية وبعيدة عنا لكن المشكلة إنه كانت تنهال علينا على So many times when I went after a bombing that just happened, I literally felt like I was standing over a mass grave, but not just A grave of people who are dead, but people who are alive and they're stuck there.

Speaker 2: ما كفّي شغل شوية يبعد من ولاية يبعد من ولاية بسرعة يبعد من ولاية.

Speaker 7: You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself, but as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to.

Speaker 2: We will always be there by your side.

Speaker 5: Israel orders the 1.1 million residents of northern Gaza to evacuate to the south of the Gaza River Valley. Many are unable or unwilling.

Speaker 13: We will not be silent.

Speaker 5: Less than 3 weeks after October 7th, 16% of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. The official death toll stands at 7,028. An Israeli magazine later reveals artificial intelligence is being used to identify targets.

Speaker 14: The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination.

Speaker 10: 972 interviewed acting members of the military. The reason that AI was being used, basically, according to those Israeli sources, is that they wanted a tempo of attacks That was faster than could be humanly sustained.

Speaker 9: Assalamu alaikum.

Speaker 10: How does the AI decide who is killable? It will look at everything that can be scraped about you, from surveillance, from spying, from your social media profile, from who your phone is near when it's— when you're walking around, who you're meeting, and they'll give you a number. And if your number out of 100 is above a certain threshold, then you can be attacked and killed. Where are you attacked and killed? Well, there's another AI called Where's Daddy? And according to this reporting in 972, again, based on what Israeli military officials told these journalists, it's easier to kill somebody when they're home than it is when they're out in the street. So this AI will monitor the location of your cell phone. Your smartphone, and when it arrives at the location that's been determined to be your residence, then there will be a ping to the guy who can target your house and bring it down. אנחנו נכנסים לביצוע, בסדר? תודה. פגע, אנחנו מפנים. I guess whoever came up with this name, Where's Daddy, thought that many of them would be fathers, and that's why it's called Where's Daddy. When they when they reach their homes, Daddy's home, and then the entire house and everybody in it. Could be blown up.

Speaker 15: بكون في داخل البيت ما بيسمع شيء ولا بيحس في أي شغلة طبعاً إحنا موجودين في البيت وأنا على الدرج طالع أنا وزوجتي وابن أخي أمامي تم قصف البيت علينا بثلاث صوريخ فنزل البيت فينا. أنا لما نسحيت من الصدمة ومن الدرب سرت أنادي أولادي تحت هم ينادوا علي عرفت حالي إنه الحمد لله أنا بخير زوجتي مسك بإيدها لكن رحمة ربنا إنه إحنا دخلنا بين طبقتين من الدراج وسحبونا بين بناتهم.

Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Nick Clark.

Speaker 9: This is The NewsHour, live from Doha.

Speaker 2: Our colleague from Al Jazeera Arabic has just learned that his wife and other members of his family have been killed in an airstrike.

Speaker 9: The entire team here in Doha is offering our sincere condolences.

Speaker 5: The family of Wael Dahdou, Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief, is killed in a strike on the Nusret refugee camp in central Gaza. Supposedly part of the safe zone south of the Gaza River Valley. The family had evacuated from the north of the Strip.

Yumna Elsayed: The attack resulted in the killing of Wael's wife, his daughter, Shalm, His son, Mahmoud, his grandson, Adam, and the injury of other family members. For him to be targeted, for his family to be targeted, it's very devastating for us as journalists. For us, it felt like that red line.

Speaker 5: At the end of October, Yumna Elsayed's own family is still in Gaza City, in the north of the Strip.

Yumna Elsayed: It was less than a week after the killing of Wael's family. A call comes from a private number on my husband's mobile phone. The officer identifies himself as the IDF officer. And he was like, we know who you are. Take your family and leave your home. Otherwise, your lives are in danger. So my husband was like, so if you know who I am, then you know that the bombardments around my home How do you expect me to take my kids and leave my home in such a time and risk their lives? And he was like, this is your problem. You need to figure it out. And I can't get over— my 12-year-old, Ameen, when this happened, she screamed at me. She was like, they're going to kill us because of you. They're going to kill us because of you.

Speaker 5: The destruction in Gaza sparks a TikTok craze in Israel. Civilians dress up as caricatures of Palestinians and mime to an Israeli song called This Was My Home. An influencer suggests Palestinians are faking their injuries. لقرحة بكوش، أنا ما تقدرش نعيتها الكورس على إنترنت شلي.

Speaker 13: نحن نلمد بكورس أحلى متاعبور بتزياري، أحلى متاعبور بزود شلتين.

Speaker 5: Another influencer taunts Palestinians for the loss of water and electricity. These videos are shared many thousands of times. After three weeks of bombardment, Israeli ground troops enter northern Gaza.

Yumna Elsayed: Everyone in the building was screaming. Everyone. It was like the kids are screaming, we're hugging each other, we're under the kitchen bar, we're terrified.

Speaker 13: And then—

Yumna Elsayed: They decided to speak to us in their mics, and they said that we have 5 minutes to leave the building. So we grabbed our children, and we got into our cars, and we left.

Speaker 2: There's a lot of gunfire ongoing now, exchange of gunfire and bullets.

Speaker 1: So we've just started heading out.

Yumna Elsayed: Just nothing safe at all.

Speaker 2: Nothing at all feels safe.

Speaker 5: Thousands of other families are trying to flee Gaza City at the same time.

Yumna Elsayed: Moving to the south, you had to do it on foot. No cars were allowed to drive in that area.

Speaker 5: 23-year-old freelance journalist Mohamed Alhelou has already narrowly escaped death a number of times.

Speaker 2: He too is fleeing south. وأنا بجري ولقيت الدبابات في كل مكان، لقيت طبعاً زننات فوقي والطيارات، لقيت الدبابة في كل مكان عند التشريع، جنصات وين مكان؟ ممنوع لا تطلع إلى يمين ولا شمال، ممنوع توقف. لو وقع منك هويتك، هويتك ممنوع توطجيبها، ضلك ماشي على طول.

Yumna Elsayed: We were asked to walk holding a white flag in one hand, raising the ID on the other hand— everyone, including the children. They would stop people while they're walking. Then they say, this person wearing this color shirt, Get out of the line. And then they would make them strip completely to their underwear in front of everyone.

Speaker 5: On the final stretch out of Gaza City, thousands wait to enter what the Israelis call the humanitarian corridor, supposedly a safe route to the south.

Speaker 2: هذا مش طريق أمنة هاي كذبت إنه هاي الطريق أمنة. فنجسس على الأرض هاي الجسس شو مالها مطخوخ مطخوخ هنا مطخوخ هنا الشارع شفت سيارات محروقة بعرفت إنه هذا مش طريق أمنة.

Yumna Elsayed: Those who were killed, everything was left on the ground for the people who were crossing to see. I made my children promise me that they would not look at the ground at all, not once. I just instructed them to look straight. Do not look at the ground. Do not look down.

Speaker 5: As Palestinians flee, Israeli soldiers enter the homes they have left Behind, I will burn their city to the ground.

Speaker 2: Yeah! I'll find every rat hole that they hide in, and I will drop down enough explosives to scare God Almighty. Yeah! Amish, Amish, Alba.

Speaker 5: Soldiers post thousands of photos and videos on social media. The I unit has identified many of them.

Speaker 2: These videos don't show a professional army.

Speaker 4: They show an army, but at times appears to almost completely lack any self-discipline, to the point where one thinks it's not just personal lack of discipline; it's an institutional lack of discipline.

Speaker 9: Under international law, you're not allowed to. Destroy ordinary civilian property. There doesn't appear to be any military objectives. It's something of a scorched-earth policy, where everything is destroyed, and it makes it very difficult to reconstruct civilian life thereafter.

Speaker 5: Soldiers loot and pillage.

Speaker 9: مسيباتي غسين شلونوين؟ The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction to look at precisely these allegations where civilian property has been targeted and where civilian property is being looted. I see there are some identities given here, so depending on that evidence, charges.

Speaker 5: Many Israeli soldiers are dual nationals.

Speaker 2: So I'm going through these terrorist houses looking for guns and explosives. Look, we found money. At every single house inside of Gaza, this is what I see, every single— unbelievable— 2 or 3 drawers stuffed with the most exotic lingerie that you can imagine, just pileloads of it. Oh, every single house, stuffed to the brim. Look at that! Unbelievable. Mm, these naughty, naughty Gazans.

Speaker 4: There seems to be this strange obsession amongst many Israeli soldiers for women's underwear. I'm not sure if it's intended to titillate or humiliate.

Speaker 9: Sharing these kind of images Per se is not a crime, but it could be used as relevant evidence to show the mindset of the soldiers concerned and the discipline or lack thereof of those soldiers.

Speaker 4: Ani tamid amarti, Arabiota kish. And it's strange. These videos seem apparently to be quite popular inside Israel. This is the bit, you know, they're being used on dating sites. Lots of people say Israeli forces shouldn't be allowed to take cameras and phones into combat. I'm glad that they are allowed to, because it allows the world to witness what's happening.

Speaker 10: The things that are really shocking to me is the repeated posting of videos of detainee humiliation— naked Palestinian detainees with headbands and zip ties on their arms being paraded around, insulted, mistreated, in many cases. These are really blatant violations of international law, and yet they keep being posted by the perpetrators. It's really astonishing.

Speaker 4: Some of these videos have horrified me. This footage breaks every norm of the treatment of detainees or the treatment of prisoners of war. It breaks every accepted standard practice and norm.

Speaker 13: Inne kona lochami mafuarim shalakhamas, shenichneu. Mide shamsi adjiad lo? Adjiad islami. De shamsi gassam. من نخبة هاي مكان بغى أطلب بيبي ما جنينا لك سا راكد خلنا.

Speaker 5: Many Palestinian detainees say they are abused.

Speaker 15: أخذوا ابني الكبير اللي هو العريس هذا وتم تعذيبه. وأنا أسمع سراخه وخنقه يعني كانوا يخنقوا فيه وضربوا فيه الجنود في الغرفة المجاورة يعني طبعاً احنا ما كان باستطاعنا انه بنادك على رؤوسنا انه نستطيع نعمل اي حراك يعني هو حكى لابني انه احنا يعني فيش حاجة بتمنعنا عن قاتلكم احنا ممكن نقتلكم كلكم عادي يعني ما حدا حيردعنا ولا حدا حيحاسبنا فكل الربط عن عيني أنا يمنع بطنه في ريحة بشعة كريهة كتير لأن برفع راسي زي ك لأن أنا نايم على جس كانت تقريبا يعني تشبه متحللها كانت كان بخرج منها دود فذاك اليوم بعد زي ك لو هو رجع عني تقريبا عشرة متر.

Speaker 16: لو سحب علي إجزاء برود له يقول لي إذا ما قلتش من أنا ونفق أنت طلعت حكت لك مكان الجس هذا يعني ما ضلش يعني.

Speaker 5: سيزن، ماذا؟ سيفيذب. A French-Israeli soldier says a detainee has been tortured.

Speaker 2: تبيه سبتيفيذب؟ لا، رغدي سبيسيته. رغدي، شوفه منكرسون دوت، شو فيك؟ دوت طورتوريت.

Speaker 9: Torture is one of the most serious international crimes. Very often, though, it's difficult to get evidence. This kind of material, where you have persons on camera admitting that they have participated in torture, would be very useful to any investigator or a prosecutor.

Speaker 5: Female detainees are also abused.

Speaker 13: بغتولادي فترة ضارب برضو ضارب يخبطني شلالين وتعبتني أنا كنت لأنه والده قيصر تتابع عمليته قيصرية كان بالكلاشن يخبطني بضهره بإيديه كان زي حديد يخبط عراسي ويخبط ويضرب ويكون أقوله يعني كنت أقوله.

Speaker 5: رقل العصبة إيش دا أكتر؟ The soldiers remove Hadil Takhdo's headscarf. She is the only woman in a truck full of men.

Speaker 13: وبالنقرة كان كتير يعني علاج يعني فينا إيه غروب بس كانوا يعني زي إخوتي برضو يعني كانوا وكفين معايا كانوا يقولوا لا إن شاء الله يكون بخير.

Speaker 5: A Star of David is carved into a detainee's Persons are being blindfolded, hooded, beaten, humiliated.

Speaker 9: The law prohibits persons from being treated in a manner that doesn't comply with normal human standards. So they have to be treated humanely. And what we're seeing here is the Exact antithesis of that.

Speaker 5: The destruction of buildings is regularly featured, often set to music.

Speaker 10: You see, Huge blocks getting blown up, universities getting blown up.

Speaker 2: Yes!

Speaker 4: It's just extraordinary. This is willful destruction. The fact that they've been able to to rig these buildings up with explosives shows very clearly that there's no.

Speaker 10: There's no justification for destroying a structure if the enemy isn't in it.

Speaker 8: I asked an IDF officer in late 2023 why they were blowing up and destroying buildings, especially civilian infrastructure across Gaza, that clearly has no military value and has no link to active fighting. And he said, basically, that it's an act of punishment by destroying every sort of infrastructure, any link, any reference to Hamas. Anything that Hamas has touched will be destroyed.

Speaker 5: By the 28th of December, 69% of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. At least 21,110 have been killed. On that day, Israeli troops occupied Kiryat Beit Qazar, a town of 13,000 people, which lies just across the fence from the Israeli kibbutz Nir Oz, which was attacked on October 7th.

Speaker 10: We are here to protest against the occupation.

Speaker 2: גדחן קומנדו פלוגה ג' לכו תחריבו את כפר המחבלים חריב את אחזה שמשם יצאו לנירוז לחטוף לרצוח לאנוס אנחנו בשמחה בשם עם ישראל להשמיד את הכפר של הנאצים במחשבם ועבדנו שבועיים עבדנו קשה כי קצת סוכן את כל הכפר עבדנו במסע At the end of the operation in Khirbet Qaza, soldiers post before and after shots.

Speaker 9: What we're seeing here is the complete decimation of a village. The soldiers give very detailed reasons why they embarked upon this. None of them are for military Purposes. The justification that is given is one of revenge, and under international humanitarian law, it is strictly prohibited to use reprisals.

Speaker 10: The revenge rhetoric that we've heard from some Israeli soldiers, it's disturbing. The large-scale, unnecessary destruction of civilian property, it's prohibited in the Geneva Conventions. It's prohibited under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Speaker 2: I'm a Palestinian.

Speaker 10: You can't go around wantonly, unnecessarily destroying civilian property. It's banned. And if you do enough of it, it's a war crime.

Speaker 5: The unit that destroys Kerdbut Qaza is Israel's 8219 Combat Engineering Battalion, which has already destroyed hundreds of buildings in Gaza City. Its commander is Lieutenant Colonel Mehr Devdevani.

Speaker 9: The International Criminal Court will look for those who are higher up the chain of command, and evidence coming directly from commanders about the orders that they gave and the way in which they command and control their troops would be vital evidence.

Speaker 5: Devdevani addresses the unit at the end of the operation. His comments are recorded in a war diary posted on Facebook by one of his troops.

Speaker 14: He said, we have stopped counting the number of buildings the battalion blew up. There is no precedent for this in the whole history of the Israeli army. We have become addicted to explosions.

Speaker 5: By the end of January, close to 90% of the population of the Gaza Strip has been displaced at least once from their homes.

Speaker 1: There is this kind of dark matter of pain. People live in a kind of heightened, uh, Fight-or-flight mode that just— that never subsides. They are always on alert. There's always this sort of baseline terror.

Speaker 5: A third of the dead are children.

Speaker 1: Because I run a children's organization, I was very interested in speaking with them and understanding their needs and understanding what they're going through. So I interviewed a lot of kids. Some of them told me that they just want to die, but they don't want to— they want to die in one piece. They're scared of being shredded.

Speaker 2: تنفي ناس كانوا بيتعاشوا والله عاشوا والله بقى فيهم ما بتتعاشوا بالدعاءات يا الله شفتهم حاولوا ما هو أنا شفتهم يا بخطير خلاص شوفوا شوفوا تزدادوا معاك بخيروا شو يا حتما زردتم دم يعني حاولوا تسمع تحاولوا ليش ليش وده دوام قوي إذا راح صلياً إذا راح صبرناش يعني إذا راح وقتها يصلي وقتها يصلي على وقتها يصلي الله الله ما نحاول إذا راح Israeli ground forces close in on the Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis.

Speaker 5: Among those taking refuge there is journalist Mohammed Alhelou. His footage will provide a unique record of the siege and assault on Gaza's second-largest hospital.

Speaker 2: Here I'm trying. I'm trying to take videos. Here he shot me in my back, and because my vest, I am still alive. And here you can see the sniper. Ah, أنا أثناء الطرسة يا. أصابتني طلقتك الناس بشكل مباشر لكن الحمد لله أنا سليم فقط أصابت الدرع الخاص بي الحمد لله رب العالمين يا نهار اسبد ومنين لسه ما سمناش and here is the verse like I can't understand why he's shot me A sniper kills a child at the hospital gates.

Speaker 5: It is too dangerous to collect his body. Mohamed films the forced evacuation of displaced people from the UN school opposite the hospital.

Speaker 2: That evening, Mohamed is When I am walk here with my friend Ibrahim, his assistant camera, and suddenly they shoot, maybe sniper or quadcopter. And my friend Ibrahim, he's shot in his legs by Israeli, 2 shot. And I am running away to emergency, like I am drop myself like so, like so fast. And I am run away to emergency. And you were shot? But he can't, and he's shot. When is Abraham? Here is Abraham stuck in this in this tent, and he is he's he's so dangerous. Here is the doctor. He tell him what he can do to stay alive because we can't get him. We can't take him. كلهم مخبوط في الرجلاء خلاص مش مشكلة بس أرفض قبلها. Here is Doctor Hero Amira. Here she give me her t-shirt to save, and I am take this t-shirt now. And here some nurse saying, "No, don't go. It's so dangerous. They shoot here." She's saying, "No, be silent, please. Don't make me stressed." Madam. Mrs. Kadi. And here she's saying, "Silent," and she's really angry. She need help. She's a hero. And here she really going, and she saved. Ibrahim's life. She saved it. She's saying here, he's alive! He's alive! Help me! Help me! And the doctor really going, going and help her. And I'm take this video, and I can't believe this. This is my friend. He's beside me. And he's shot. And I can't help him, but this here woman, she help him. Then the woman is like really here. Palestinian woman is like the best woman in all the world. وحوش وحوش. هذا كلام جماعة. يا شباب. شغول صعب جدا جدا إنه أنت يكون زميلك قدامك ومش قادر تنقذه. شغول لا يوصف. Three days later.

Speaker 5: A tank orders the evacuation of the hospital, referring to those inside as al-hayawanat— animals.

Speaker 2: And he's saying, go out, animals, dogs. He's like— he's speaking to people like, animals, dogs, go out.

Speaker 5: The Israelis send a Palestinian detainee to tell the people To leave, his name is Jamal Abu Alola. His mother is inside the hospital.

Speaker 13: جريت جراي حتى ما لبست برجلي من كتر ما أنا كنت بدي أطمن على ابني وجراي فُتت على الطوارئ لجاية الكل مجامر نازحين مجامرين مع جمال هو شافني ساعتا حضنته وحظني. أول كلمة حكاها وبكى كان جواتوني أمام الكتل وأنا جاي برسالة للمستشفى ولأنها زحين يخرجوا غيرها عشر دقايق وتطلعوا وإلى المستشفى حيفجروها فينا وفي لك ويقولت لوك إذا أنا مرشعين ما ضلش فيه استعاف بخي تلون تروح يا ما تبتش عليهم يا ما خليك هنا تقولي لا يا ما ما بدفع ضلي حيبوتلوك محدد فيك أنا سواني كان الكلام مع جمال وطار طار زي الحمام يا قدامي.

Speaker 9: What we appear to be seeing here is a civilian being used. To be a messenger used as a military asset—that's in many ways the definition of using persons as a human shield to shield what you're trying to do as the army by putting people in harm's way. That's prohibited under international law.

Speaker 2: الاحتلال الآن بشكل رسمي بيعلن إنه يجب إخلاء المستشفى بشكل رسمي. الكامل وفوري وسريع حقيقة يعني لا أعلم أين الوجهة التي سنتوجه إليها وهل هناك طريق آمن كما يدعي هذا أمرنا بالإخلاص ويقوم بإطلاق النار بشكل متواصل shortly afterwards Jamal returned Here we can see in this video. Here he's trying saying go out, but people is worried because it's no safe. Is a liar. Is big liar. Massive liar.

Speaker 5: Jamal's mother is among a small group of people who follow Jamal.

Speaker 13: أنا رحت على الخيمة وتلقيت أفكر. في لحظة هيك في لحظة تانية ها نعجل لإلي إن بدي أخد أو لبس لإلهم وأطلع في شونات حتى الناس تم تشوفني أنا كأموه إن أطلعت كمان أنا يطلعوا معايا وأي يسلم ابني وما ينقتلش فحين ما أقولك أنا عند معدية بدي أعد على جمال بالشناتي جمال تم قنصه طلقة الأولى ارتمى فيها على ظهر ابني قف على ظهره وصرخ بعلى الصوت ساعتها يا أمه آي أمه ساعتها أنا كأنه حاسس أن أنا وراه صرخت كمان أنا حتى عليه قلت له يا أمه أنا بظهرك هاي وأراك هنحفوت عالجوال مستشواجي بكي يسافوك بعدين فرجله بس مش عارفة إنها مميتة كانت لإبني أخوه هيرى الطلقة كمان طلقتين لما أنت خدت انتين كان جسمه جمال يهتز ما رحامهوش يعني بطلقة واحد أو بس لسه شو جمال طبعا الضرب والتمكين اللي صار فيه وتعذيب هاد إحنا شوفنا بس اللي على وجهه.

Speaker 5: The following day, the displaced people finally leave the hospital, led by the hospital's director. The long journey south lasts into the night. شت كل هذا الطريق حاج ماشي حافي؟ Among them is Mohammed's injured friend Ibrahim.

Speaker 2: اليهود على ما في قدامك بتشوفهم وقفين. لا نقول يمشي أخاه بتعرف إن إحنا بقعنا بقعنا خلاص تعبنا وين الشعب العربي وين العالم كلها تطلع عنا حسبنا الله ونعمل وكيف بحمد الله طول العب السلام محمد carries Ibrahim for the last part of the journey.

Speaker 5: المصابين. Behind them, the remaining patients and medical staff at the NASA hospital.

Speaker 2: Come under attack. We are attacked by Israel. The following day, the last journalist.

Speaker 5: And doctors to leave are hit by a drone. A female doctor is badly injured.

Speaker 2: Ya Allah!

Speaker 5: The NASA hospital will remain closed for five months. Each 28 of Gaza's 36 hospitals has been attacked, with 19 closed down altogether. Medical equipment has been deliberately destroyed. By February 15th, 72% of the buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, and 46% of those in southern Gaza. The official death toll stands at 28,000. The assault on Gaza is facilitated by Western powers. 69% of Israel's arms imports come from the U.S., 30% from Germany. Behind the scenes, another country is playing a major role. I'm proud to stand here with you in Israel's darkest hour.

Speaker 3: As your friend, we will stand with you in solidarity.

Speaker 9: We will stand with your people. And we also want you to win.

Speaker 2: Thank you.

Speaker 5: At Akrotiri on Cyprus, the U.K. maintains a large Air Force base less than 400 kilometers from Gaza. A British investigative journalist looks at the role RAF Akrotiri is playing.

Speaker 3: So, in December, the U.K. government announced that they were going to start doing surveillance flights over Gaza, for hostage rescue, they said. But they didn't say where they were going to go from. They didn't say how many there were going to be or what they were going to collect or how long they were in the air for. So I started looking at flight tracker websites. On the 3rd of December, this flight goes— here you can see. So it flies from RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus, and then over the sea turns off its transponder, so you can't see where it's going. And there were dozens of them straight away. And these are 6-hour flights. They're in the air for 6 hours. The planes are R1 Shadow planes. Their capabilities include target acquisition for military strikes. And the information the British were getting, they were sharing with the Israelis. Now, they said it was all to do with hostage rescue. But even at that point, there was only 2 British hostages in Gaza. So it also doesn't explain— there was up to 1,000 hours of footage by March that they would have collected over Gaza.

Speaker 5: Matt Kenar's reporting Get out of Cyprus! Get out! With Israel under investigation by the International Court of Justice for genocide, the assistance given by the UK and other Western powers has legal implications.

Speaker 10: If you start acting in a conflict to a level that the people on the ground who are doing the fighting are using your information actively, As they fight. You can't just say the Israelis are doing things and we, we want them to behave differently if they're killing too many civilians, but we're not really involved. Actually, you may be a party to the conflict yourself. If you continue to know and continue to supply weapons and targeting information, if you're supplying targeting information despite knowing what the result is, and the result is a gross human rights violation, Then you also get to complicity. So, you know, the deniability that you're deeply involved in what's going on in Gaza begins to evaporate.

Speaker 5: Western politicians blame Hamas for the high death toll.

Speaker 2: They use Palestinian civilians as human shields. Hamas offers nothing but terror and bloodshed. With no regard to who pays the price. They unleash terror, then hide among them, women and children used as human shields.

Speaker 5: This claim goes entirely unchallenged in the West, but there is no evidence to support it.

Speaker 10: The claim is basically that armed groups are operating in populated areas, And that is basically what is meant, in many cases, when somebody says Hamas is using human shields.

Speaker 8: If your territory is as small as the Gaza Strip, it's near impossible to locate your military bases far away from civilian infrastructure and civilian areas.

Speaker 10: We don't have evidence that Palestinian armed groups are, you know, hiding right next to civilians and not allowing the civilians to leave, right? An element of human shielding is that you either don't tell civilians to leave, You either tell them that you're right there, or they know you're there, but you don't allow them to leave, if you're the guy with the gun.

Speaker 11: We conducted several interviews, dozens of interviews, with civilians and with people, Palestinians, in areas that were designated as combat zones. But we have not documented at least one case of Palestinian armed members using civilians as human shields.

Yumna Elsayed: I have never, not once, seen any Hamas operatives in any of the hospitals that I have reported from. Not Al-Shifa Hospital, not the European Hospital, not Nasser Hospital, not Al-Quds Hospital. There are dozens of journalists reporting from these hospitals, and not one journalist There has to be a purpose in using a civilian as a human shield.

Speaker 11: The party that uses civilians as human shields need to understand that the other party would be concerned for this civilian's life. I'm a civilian. But in the case of Gaza, civilians here have been one of the main targets of the Israeli army since the beginning of the attack. So there wouldn't be a purpose in using a civilian as a human shield, because the civilian himself is a target.

Speaker 5: Israel has regularly been condemned for using human shields by the U.N. and numerous international and Israeli human rights organizations.

Speaker 2: Hello, sir.

Speaker 10: There used to be something that was known as the neighbor procedure. It was called this by, by, by the military, where you would go into a house, you'd get somebody from the house, and you'd get them to walk in front of you and take them to the next-door neighbor's house, and then knock on the door and open it up. And the idea would be that you're behind them with the gun, so if there's a guy inside the house with a gun, they're not going to shoot at their own neighbor, and then you can kill them. I want to ask you, are these men being detained?

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 10: You can't— you can't use them as human shields.

Speaker 2: This is a war crime.

Speaker 10: You know that, right?

Speaker 2: Not using them as a human shield.

Speaker 10: They're standing in front of your jeep. That's not a human shield?

Speaker 5: Masked Israeli soldiers use a 7-year-old child when confronted by stone throwers. Al Jazeera has uncovered evidence the Israelis are using human shields in this conflict as well.

Speaker 15: صار في اشتباك بينهم وبين شباب في المقاومة خارج البيت يعني خلف المنزل فأخذوا الأخذونا إحنا رجال وحطونا عند الشرفة وكانوا حطين الأسلحة تعتهم فوق. روسنا ويطلق قرصاص على الجهة الأخرى للشباب وإحنا كنا مثل سواتر أو دروع بشرية أنه شافوني بتكلم لغة إنجليزية قال لي بدك تطلع هو كان بالرشاش من البالكونة شايفني وقال لي أي حركة منك يعني بتروح أو بتحرك أنا هعطلك قرصاص عليك فضريت إنه أدخل في أماكن حفار وأماكن كذا وأقول له إنه ما فيش أحد وأرجع تاني فطلب مني إنه أدخل بيوت المنطقة كلها.

Speaker 5: This description fits with evidence obtained by Al Jazeera. A civilian is ordered to inspect empty buildings while monitored by two drones.

Speaker 2: We are going to the border.

Speaker 5: In this case, 2 civilians are fitted with cameras and are ordered to inspect buildings in case of booby traps or ambushes.

Speaker 16: خذوني على شحن شبحوني خارج الشحن مش داخله بالشكل هذا في إيدي واحدة في إيدي واحدة ربطنا مربط البلاستيك من إيدي اليمين وربطنا خارج الشحن وأنا مجرد من كامل ملابس كانت الدنيا مطر.

Speaker 5: Footage from the occupied West Bank supports this account. This photograph is taken by an Israeli soldier in Gaza City. The i-Unit has spoken to 6 individuals who say they were used as human shields.

Speaker 11: Since the beginning of this ground invasion, we have documented dozens of cases where civilians were actually used as human shields by the Israeli army, forcing them to enter combat zones or enter They're not allowed to enter places or enter buildings that they think are, for example, booby-trapped, or where they think that there might be armed members of Palestinian factions inside one area or another. And this is being used on a daily basis.

Speaker 9: Where you see it cropping up on a continuous If you see violence on this widespread basis, then investigators and prosecutors will look high up to see if that is being countenanced, if it's either coming down as a direct direction from those above, or they're turning a blind eye. And in both of those cases, it can incur command responsibility for those in the chain of command.

Speaker 5: After being held within Gaza for a few days, many detainees are transferred to Israel.

Speaker 2: OK, we smell it.

Speaker 5: By mid-February, more than 8,000 Palestinians are being held in detention centers. Israel's Channel 13 makes no attempt to conceal their conditions. The guards claim these prisoners are all Nukba, the elite unit of Hamas's Qassam Brigades.

Speaker 16: فاخد لشنو؟ إيش لهم لخم؟ و. مدة فترة السجن تقريباً خمسة وأربعين يوم كانت مدة السجن تبعتي، مدة الاعتقال خمسة وأربعين يوم على ضريب، على تكسير، على عقاب وقفنا على الجدير، سوء تغذية فوق ما تتصور.

Speaker 5: فاري باكا is held at the Sedai Teman Detention Center in southern Israel.

Speaker 16: يعني ما كانش هو عبارة عن اعتجى الأوسيجن سيدتمان لا كان سيدتمان للانتجام أقول لك على أصعب موقف أنا عشته السيجن سيدتمان تقل سيدتمان ندعو على أسماء ثلاث أشخاص كان اسمي من بين الثلاث أسماء هذول طلعنا ساحة أسمنتية خصص لنوع واحد من نوع التعزي بس نوع واحد من نوع التعزي فكوا عنينا قاعدين على ركبنا اجوا اخذوا شاب كان موجود اخذوه ضربوه بعد ما ضربوه نايموه على الارض على بطنه ربطوا اديه وربطوا رجليه وكفين تجري من تسع جنود أو تمن جنود كانوا موجودين. لفجأة جردوا من ملابس السفلية. إجا كابتن كان موجود، إجا زي وضع مادة إشي حاجة إشي يعني عن مؤخرة الشاب وأطلقوا أو كان في كلب موجود أطلقوا عليه الكلب. كلب هذا يعني كيف أقول لك؟ مش مارس الجنس اختص بالشاب. اختصابه في معنى الكلمة اختصاب تام.

Speaker 9: Those who are captured in armed conflict, whether they are civilians or fighters, have to be treated humanely. They certainly cannot be beaten and tortured and raped. That's absolutely fundamental in humanitarian law.

Speaker 5: Nine soldiers are later arrested at the Seday Teman detention center after a detainee is admitted to hospital.

Speaker 2: תודה רבה על ההצבעה לעצור אותנו כשאנחנו אחראים על המחבלים שלנו חברה רבותיי עם ישראל אני מבקש מכם צאו למעננו לרחוב אני לא מוכן לתושב הזאת יעצרו אותי.

Speaker 5: Right-wing demonstrators stormed the detention center in protest at the arrest of the soldiers. Shortly afterwards, Israeli television shows an alleged rape taking place behind a row of riot shields.

Speaker 14: According to Israeli press reports, the victim suffers a ruptured bowel, A severe injury to his anus, lung damage, and broken ribs.

Speaker 5: Many emerge from detention traumatized.

Speaker 4: قتل ضرب جوع.

Speaker 2: فقر مرض ألفين أسير أمراض مزمنة مزمنة جداً أمراض قوية جداً وضعهم سيء جداً لهم الله أنا فرجتهم عليهم لهم وتن مع بعض.

Speaker 5: A UN aid convoy is hit 3 times. 6 foreign aid workers are killed, along with their Palestinian driver.

Speaker 2: No!

Speaker 5: With the Israelis severely restricting supplies of aid to the Strip, hundreds of thousands face starvation.

Speaker 1: The hunger is real. It's actually felt by everybody. You see them in the hospitals when the children just collapse, and they come in and they're skeletal. All of the doctors in our team would sort of kind of have these informal debriefs. And every day, malnutrition, malnutrition, malnutrition.

Speaker 5: The April 1st missile strike is not the only attack on an aid convoy.

Speaker 10: It was not an isolated incident. We, Human Rights Watch, documented another 7 cases where, very specifically, Humanitarian and aid workers were attacked after having given the Israeli military their precise coordinates and detailed information about their activities and their movements. In some cases, it looks like the precise coordinates that aid groups gave to the Israeli military to deconflict and keep themselves safe were then hit precisely by Israeli attacks.

Speaker 1: Hey!

Speaker 10: So our assessment is very clearly that the Israeli authorities are using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. It's a double war crime. You have collective punishment of the civilian population, and you specifically have the use of starvation as a weapon of war.

Speaker 2: By June 2014, the Israeli military had seized control of the Gaza Strip.

Speaker 5: As of June 27th, 72% of buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, and 51% in southern Gaza. The death toll stands at 37,765. As troops leave Gaza, they place commemorative videos online. This video documents the activities of the 202nd Paratroopers Battalion.

Speaker 2: This is the 202nd Paratroopers Battalion.

Speaker 4: I'm just going to hold this here. I'm going to play this back again. This is extraordinary. The fact that he's put this onto video, he's released this on YouTube, to me is kind of quite extraordinary, the degree of impunity.

Speaker 5: The video shows 2 other instances where unarmed men are shot by snipers.

Speaker 4: Now, of course, I don't know the context of what happened before. I don't know what happened 2 minutes before that. They may have been involved in contacting and shooting at Israeli forces. They may have been legitimate targets. But it sure doesn't look like it to me.

Speaker 9: Just because a civilian is walking in an area where combat is going on doesn't Being a civilian does not make them fair game. If they get involved in hostilities at a particular moment, yes, they lose their civilian status. They can be targeted. But then you have to show on the evidence that they are presenting a threat to you. It's potentially a matter that the International Criminal Court would want to look at.

Speaker 5: Large numbers of Palestinians On July 25th, 45 American physicians, surgeons, and nurses who have volunteered in Gaza since October 7th write to President Biden.

Speaker 2: They state, we are not ready to return to Gaza.

Speaker 5: We are not ready to return to Gaza.

Speaker 14: Every one of us, on a daily basis, treated preteen children who were shot in the head and chest.

Speaker 2: Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!

Speaker 5: Since October 7th, the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, have released over 300 combat videos.

Speaker 13: You lying son of a bitch!

Speaker 8: The IDF is fighting ghosts. They're fighting against targets that appear and disappear quite quickly. And the tunnel system in itself has made this an urban combat scenario, which is very unique in human military history. There's never been a scenario such as this, where you have 2 layers of a battlefield. We usually talk about controlling the ground. We never had to really talk about controlling the underground.

Speaker 2: Allahu Akbar!

Speaker 6: When it comes to tunnels, you are talking about around 500 to 600 kilometers under the ground, in different depths— 20 meters, 30 meters, 40 meters. With the tunnels, we were able to move underground, to plan and to attack the enemy. And he has lost the ability to control the field.

Speaker 4: Now, the idea that Hamas is near elimination is nonsensical. Hamas are still out there. They've not yet been decisively defeated. They are nowhere near decisively defeated, in my view. Deterrence has not been restored.

Speaker 7: At the beginning of the war, it was about destroying Hamas, bringing the hostages home. But right now, the hostages are still— you know, 120 hostages are there. Hamas is still fighting. So the problem was from the beginning setting an objective that is not achievable.

Speaker 5: The official Israeli death toll from the fighting in Gaza is 346. In August, Israel's Defense Ministry said more than 10,000 soldiers have registered as wounded, 35% of them suffering mental trauma. The official Palestinian death toll stands at more than 41,000, The Palestinian death toll does not include thousands still buried under the rubble and those who have died from hunger and lack of access to medication and healthcare. It's possible the final toll for dead and injured in the Gaza Strip will be more than 10% of the total population. The death toll is not just the number of dead. The Americans and Germans continue to provide weapons. The new Labour government in the UK continues to operate surveillance flights. And Israeli soldiers continue to pose for photos.

Speaker 1: Palestinians are aware that the Israeli military That they have been abandoned, that the world that speaks of human rights and international law is lying, that those concepts are meant for, for white people or for Westerners, that accountability is not meant to hold Their oppressors to account that they have been really kind of discarded like rubbish.

Speaker 2: إنه أنا مصور صح فيه بس بالنهاية أنا إنسان. بن آدم بحس وبشوف لأنه شايف شغلنا ملوش داعي شايف صوتنا ملوش داعي أنا لما بقولهم يا عمي قصفه مستشفى يا عمي في ناس بتموت يا عمي فيش أدوية فيش أكل ولا حدا بتطلع ولا حدا بساعد أنا إسا أنا لمين بصور عن جد أنا لمين بصور لمين بوصل رسالة لكن على الواقع ما تغيرش إشي على الواقع الأمور بتزيد أصعب وأسوأ وأسوأ يا أخي لمين كالصوري لمين كالصوري لمين لمين بتك الصوري لمين مين بدور علينا مين بدور علينا Adnan, be our boss. Adnan! Adnan! Adnan, our boss! Zayed! Zayed! Zayed!

Speaker 10: International law has been trashed by the actions of the Israeli military, by the actions of the parties to this conflict, but also by the actions of their allies, which look at what's going on Allahu Akbar.

Speaker 2: Allahu Akbar.

Speaker 1: The West has spent decades creating this rules-based order, and it's finally laid— been laid bare as a big sham, as a big— as just a way to further Western interests. This is the jungle. Is this the new order, where it's just out in the open that those with power can do whatever they want?